Even as UTLA looks to bolster declining union membership with push into charters, one school’s teachers voted to decertify after just two years

As the Los Angeles teachers union continues to try to organize educators at the city’s largest charter school network, teachers at one of the few independent charter schools that joined the union voted to leave it after less than two years because union officials were pushing their own agenda, according to interviews and documents reviewed by LA School Report.

Teachers at Port of Los Angeles High School had come to United Teachers Los Angeles looking to secure a voice during a time of tumult in the school’s leadership, but they left the union after they failed to get contract waivers they said union leadership had promised.

The goals of the teachers and the union clashed, Principal Tom Scotti said.

“From what I’ve been told, there were many reasons for why” the school’s teachers voted to leave the union, he said, but the main reason was “a bait and switch with the union.”

“They were told that if they did not want tenure, the union wouldn’t push for it, but that turned out to be not the case.”